'Love Me Not' will confound and delight

[Soup Goblin]

I have been doing a webcomic for about five months now and would love to get some comments on how I'm doing.

The comic is basically about a small group of friends who generally aren't very good at communicating with each other. Topics such as the ephemerality of love, and the lengths we take to keep ourselves in unhappy situations, seem to come up fairly often for some reason.

This last month I switched from a three-comic-a-week schedule to a five-comic-a-week schedule and so far have not yet missed an update. So come on in and poke around a bit, eh?

Addendum: One of my main characters has recently been revealed to be a homosexual. If this sort of thing might bother you, you may want to skip over this comic and read a less threatening piece of literature. No hard feelings!

[LibertyCabbage]

Addendum: One of my main characters has recently been revealed to be a homosexual. If this sort of thing might bother you, you may want to skip over this comic and read a less threatening piece of literature. No hard feelings!

^^

The writing's very good, but I feel the art doesn't add anything to it. It seems to me like a novel that's lightly illustrated. The problem is that I think written descriptions would be much more interesting than the dull pictures accompanying the words. So, what I'm saying is, this is a novel that's stunted because it abandoned a lot of elements of literature in exchange for being illustrated, but the illustrations don't add enough to the story to make up for it.

One thing you need to remember is that writing is only a part of a comic. I tend to break a comic down into three basic parts: writing, art, and what I call "direction." While I can see that you're a talented writer, the art is mediocre and the direction is minimal.

What you need to figure out is how you can use the art and direction to make your story better as a comic than as a novel. If you can't then I'd suggest turning Love Me Not into a literary work and starting a new, visual-based project.

[Blackaby]

I like the story. It's got a great mixture of cute & angst. Liberty Cabbage is right though - you're being let down by your art and especially your layout. I don't think the ratio of text-to-pictures is really right for the comic format, so unless you integrate them better and add more pictures (instead of using long streams of bubble interchanges above the characters' heads) it'll just continue to look clumsy.

I have a feeling your art will get better fast because that seems to be what happens when people update on such a quick schedule. All that practice makes perfect, and all.

Anyway good luck, I enjoyed reading it. I also think you handled the self-acceeptance part of the story very well.

[Nutcracker]

I added it to favourites over a month ago because I like the story.
I totally agree with LibertyCabbage about the art. It sometimes irritates me. How much time do you spend on it?

[Soup Goblin]

So basically you're saying that there's not enough emphasis placed on the artistic bits of the comic and that there is an overabundance of word balloons? I guess that is true, I have always been unsure about my drawing skills. This comic is the first time I've tried anything art-related (which is clearly evident when looking at the first bunch of pages) besides doodling or stick figures. I guess maybe I tried to "beef up" my under-developed drawings with more text than is strictly necessary. I also tend to have an "eh, good enough" attitude when it comes to the art. As long as it at least looks recognizable.
ANYways, I'll keep that in mind for the future. ^^

[Subhuman]

I keep imagining what would happen if you collaborated with a really good artist on this comic. You could take over the world.

I like the story, and the dialogue, and the general writing. You are a very talented writer, and Alex's "I know I should be feeling something, but I'm just not" internal dialogue struck a nerve with me, for some reason. But I agree with the critiques of the art, and the occasional overabundance of text. Try to show us what the characters are feeling, rather than telling us. By that I mean let the characters' actions speak louder than their words.

[LibertyCabbage]

It's not so much that the art is bad, it's just that the way you use it makes it seem so trivial and unnecessary. A lot of the time it seems like the drawings are just something to point the word balloons at.

I suppose a place to start would be to analyze some of your favourite webcoimcs and see how they use the art and writing together. Also, experiment with your comic and try different styles.